BOOK III PART II
of duty and obligation. And this answer, no
doubt, is just and satisfactory to man in his civ-
ilized state, and when trained up according to
a certain discipline and education. But in his
rude and more natural condition, if you are
pleased to call such a condition natural, this
answer would be rejected as perfectly unintel-
ligible and sophistical. For one in that situa-
tion would immediately ask you,Wherein con-
sists this honestiy and justice, which you find in
restoring a loan, and abstaining from the property
of others?It does not surely lie in the external
action. It must, therefore be placed in the mo-
tive, from which the external action is derived.
This motive can never be a regard to the hon-
esty of the action. For it is a plain fallacy to say,
that a virtuous motive is requisite to render an
action honest, and at the same time that a re-
gard to the honesty is the motive of the action.